Take me out to the Dbacks!

In an attempt to get out, do something different, and pretend to get out of the heat, we bought some nosebleed tickets to the Arizona Diamondbacks vs San Diego Padres game this past Friday.  It was "out", it was different, but our goal to get out of the heat didn't go over as well.

 

The 32nd Annual Day of Monica

What do you do when you're feeling burned out with work, have been tired for like, a decade, have been diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus, and really, really need to feel pampered?  Simple!  Have a 32nd birthday!  :)

 

 To kick things off the right way, Monica took the boys out for a birthday Krispy Kreme donut (you get a free one on your birthday you know!).  She followed that up with 1 hour massage (no pic of that :) )

Next, she went to lunch with her Mom & Dad and John at the KFC.

 Next, she pretty much nailed perfect zen by going shopping and getting a pedicure with her mom.  Ooo la la, feelin' good!

 After all that relaxation we got the juices flowing again with a good game of bowling.

 It was Linc's first time and he did pretty well.  On his first turn he launched the ball and then chased it down the lane, slipped, and fell flat on his back.  Probably should have told him about the slippery floors first.

 Here's Monica showing off her birthday girl bowling stance.  It totally paid off for her too.  She actually bowled 3 strikes during the one game.  Of course, only one of them was on HER actual turn.

 So here are the final results.  Monica is SMY for "Smybirthday!"

Happy Bday Monica!!!  I don't care what the scoreboard says, YOU are the best!  :)

Meeting Elder Bednar

This weekend we had the opportunity to attend several meetings as part of our stake's biannual conference.  About every 10 years or so (or according to need), the leadership of LDS stakes is reorganized.  When the time comes for this to happen, a representative of the Church's general leadership comes to conduct this reorganization.  What happens much less frequently is when a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles comes.  There are 3000+ stakes around the world so as you can imagine, it's not nearly as easy to get around.

We were blessed to have Elder David A. Bednar of the quorum of the twelve apostles assist our meetings.  For anyone reading this post who is not of our faith, know that we believe Elder Bednar is an apostle in the very same way that Peter, James, John, Matthew, Luke, and all of the others from Jesus' time were apostles.  His role is to stand as a witness of Jesus Christ and bear testimony of Him around the world.  So to have him there to participate and instruct us was a special event, one which we'll remember for a long time.

After the final meeting on Sunday, we got to meet Elder Bednar briefly before he left.  He asked Lincoln his name and then showed him how to give him "nuks" and "blow it up".  He jokingly called it apostolic nuks.  We all laughed.  It's refreshing to see that a man whom we revere as a prophet is also a genuinely nice and normal person, with a personality and sense of humor of his own.

And then there was this cave. . .

We're holding steady at about 108 these days, which, believe it or not makes it a cooler summer than in years past.  But yes, it's still hot and everyone knows that.  But I'll bet not nearly as many know about Tonto Natural Bridge.  It's about 2 hrs from Mesa and TOTALLY worth the drive and the $5 per adult to get in.

We started out with a short walk to a natural travertine waterfall.  This kicked the day off nicely: 

 If I were a real photographer, with a really awesome camera, this would have been one of those pictures with a long exposure where the water looks like it's just flowing gracefully down in wisps of white.

This is Tonto Natural Bridge from above.

The hike to the bridge takes you through a really old riverbed.  This river must have been HUGE at some point.  Check out the 3 completely different boulders piled on each other here.  Also, you'll see there's a piece of wood lodged up under the really big one.

Got me thinking what kind of force does this kind of thing.  This log is lodged in there like a rock!

Here we are about to venture beneath the bridge.  There are little pools here and there.  Some of them you can swim in.  The rest have piranhas.

This is inside the cave (beneath the natural bridge).  You can see people scaling down the wall on the top left of this picture.  That's where we came from.  That's right, I hauled the Oliver in the baby backpack down that thing.  And Lincoln got an impromptu lesson in rock climbing.  It was AWESOME to see him go!

This is on the other side of the bridge where there's a misting waterfall.  In the 90+ temperatures it was that day, that mist felt VERY REFRESHING!

And what hike into the largest natural travertine bridge in the world be without a handful of wild blackberries?

This is the Knotty Pine and it is one of our new favorite places to eat simply because of this:

Now that's a burger mate!